2-888-685 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The Prerogative Court, Doctors' Commons, 1850. Illustration to an article by Thomas Miller and Godfrey Malvern. Interior of '...the chambers where the wills of the dead are deposited [near the corner of St. Paul's Churchyard in London];...through those doors by which many a beating and anxious heart enters, to return disappointed, or half delirious with delight through dreaming of the many pleasures which riches will procure...We have gazed on those dark-bound volumes...and thought that if the dead were permitted to return again, what ghastly forms would enter that room, shrieking aloud names once beloved, and blotting out for ever such as they had in their blind passion inserted...There is a smell as of death about the place, as if grey old departed spirits lurked in the musty folios, and had scattered their ashes amid the yellow and unearthly -looking parchments...'. From "Illustrated London News", 1850.